


The Other Life Unlived

by tielan



Category: Stargate SG1
Genre: AU, Episode: s03e06 Point of View, F/M, Gen, Mirror Universe, Quantum Mirror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-27
Updated: 2011-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another Point Of View...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Life Unlived

Sam walked briskly through the corridors, wondering why the General had called her up here.

The last she knew, all her team-mates were on base and in perfect health. They’d had lunch together, chatted over sandwiches, fruit and cake and teased the Colonel on his grey streaks while he growled at them. There’d been no klaxons, no alarms, nothing to indicate that something had gone wrong off base or on. It had been a silent day at the SGC – by anyone’s standards, an anomaly.

As she approached the open door of the infirmary, she cast her mind back, trying to determine if the general had sounded different than usual. Maybe a little worried, but other than that...

Two steps into the infirmary, and she paused. Colonel O’Neill sat on the infirmary bed closest to the door; his arm bandaged, his expression grim, swinging his legs.

She blinked. “Sir? What happened to your arm?”

His head whipped around at the sound of her voice. Dark eyes widened, and he went dead white, staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. It was an unnerving response and one she didn’t expect from him.

Beyond him, standing beside the head of the bed, General Hammond’s expression was blank and unhelpful. Sam tried to read him for cues on what had happened, but the general offered no hints. She looked back at the Colonel, who was still staring at her.

“Sir?” She ventured, “Is everything okay?”

“Sam?”

She blinked once, surprised.

Later, she would realise that the name should have tipped her off. The Colonel hadn’t called her by name in a long time – and never in the personal tones he was using now.

“You’re alive?”

Again, Sam looked to the general. Again, he provided her with no cues. “Sir?”

“Don’t feel so bad about it, Doc,” said a new voice. On the other side of the infirmary bed, a curtain was pushed back showing Janet and a man Sam remembered from long ago. A man who was dead.

She blinked, just in case she was hallucinating. “Major Kawalsky?”

“In a manner of speaking,” General Hammond said, the first words he’d said since Sam came into the room.

“Actually, in a manner of fact, sir,” Janet said, glancing over at the General before her gaze flicked back to Sam. “This is Major Charles Kawalsky in almost every physical respect: his bloodwork, his dental records, scars...”

“Except I’m not supposed to be alive in this reality any more than you are, Doc,” Kawalsky said, nodding his head at Sam. Then he looked to the Colonel. “Sorry, Jack.”

It took her a moment to fumble her way through it. _This reality..._ “You’re from another world!” She said, feeling excitement suddenly course through her. Daniel had spoken of another reality, but Sam had never seen it with her own eyes – she’d never imagined this... She looked from one man to another – two men who’d been born in the next universe over – or maybe a dozen universes over. Her mind began going through the theorems of quantum mechanics and the possibilities boggled her mind. “Sir?” She looked at the general.

“They appeared a few hours ago in a Nellis high-security lockup, Major,” Hammond explained. Now that she considered him, he looked about as poleaxed as she – although he hid it better and his amazement was not for quite the same reasons as hers. “The base commander at Nellis sent them on here.”

During all this, Colonel O’Neill – the other Colonel O’Neill - hadn’t taken his eyes off Sam for more than a couple of seconds. Sam could feel his gaze on her – a disconcerting sense that he was expecting something of her, something that she was failing to provide him. “Major?” The realisation was sudden. “You’re an Air Force Major?” His eyes narrowed. “Doctorate?”

Sam glanced at General Hammond, tacitly asking whether she should answer the man’s questions. Not for the first time, she felt like a green recruit trying to prove herself. Although it was interesting that her counterpart was, once again, civilian.

It certainly explained why the Colonel hadn’t addressed her by her rank.

The general nodded, the slightest dip of his head, and she looked back at the other Colonel O’Neill. “Astrophysics.”

“In the labs or on a team?”

“SG-1, sir.”

The Colonel winced – a familiar ‘oh, I don’t want to know’ wince - and quipped, “There’s no place like home.”

Kawalsky didn’t respond. Instead, he looked to Sam. “I guess you never learned how to use the quantum mirror then?”

“We lost the controller after Daniel went through the first time,” she said, resenting the implication that they hadn’t been smart enough to get it working. That _she_ hadn’t been smart enough to get it working.

“Who’s Daniel?” A puzzled expression creased Kawalsky’s face.

“We can’t be followed through, General.” Colonel O’Neill turned back to Sam. “We brought the remote controller through with us.”

Sam recognised it as an entreaty, what puzzled her was the fact that he’d addressed it to her. He was a Colonel; she was only a Major. Apparently, in his world, she wasn’t even that – she was a civilian Doctor.

“I’ve ordered the device brought here under heavy guard,” General Hammond said, informing her of that status before she could ask.

“Under heavy guard?”

Evidently some of her confusion registered on her face. “Where we come from, the Goa’uld just took over the world, Major.” Kawalsky said with utter seriousness.

Sam felt the world spin around her.

*

Her brain still hadn’t cleared by the time SG-1 had assembled around the briefing room table to watch the video interrogation of the two men from the alternate reality.

“...Look, I’ve told you all this already,” snapped the Colonel O’Neill on the TV screen. “Now I want to talk to someone from the SGA!”

“SGA?” The interrogator was quiet and disbelieving, the voice of the eternal sceptic. Sam could well understand why the Colonel on the videotape was losing his temper. “There’s no such organisation.”

The wide mouth thinned and the dark eyes narrowed. “I was on Black Ops missions back when you were still polishing shoes, mister. Believe me, there’s an organisation equivalent to the SGA around here somewhere. You probably call it something else – the Stargate Project or Stargate Command – hell, for all I know, you might call it the Patty and Selma Files – but it’s around here somewhere or you wouldn’t have had a mirror for us to come through.”

“The Stargate,” said the interrogator calmly. “Tell me about this ‘Stargate’ – what do you know about it?”

“You know exactly what I know about it,” snapped Jack O’Neill at the man. “I just told you!”

“So tell me again.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” The man threw his hands in the air. “All right then. It’s a big round circle of metal that can take you to other planets. It...” He paused. “It creates a subspace wormhole – like the way a worm goes straight through an apple instead of all the way around it.” He appeared to think about that a minute – enough time for Sam to catch Daniel’s disbelieving stare from her to the Colonel to the man on the video. She’d tried to explain subspace wormhole theory to the Colonel before and never yet managed to make any of it stick!

Maybe her equivalent in the other reality just explained it better.

The Colonel continued again. “Maybe it’s the other way around – I never got that bit. Anyway, what that means in practical terms is that four years ago, Dr. Samantha Carter figured out how to get the Stargate to work, and since then, we’ve been going through the Stargate to explore the galaxy. Then, a week ago, Goa’uld ships descended on the planet, started bombing the living daylights out of every major city on Earth and making slaves of the population.”

The general paused the tape and glanced around the table.

“Okay,” the Colonel said, raising his right hand in the air. “I’m weirded out. Is anyone else weirded out?”

“It’s possible, sir,” Sam could only say. “If Daniel went through the mirror to another reality...”

“But that’s not the Jack O’Neill I met when I went through to that other reality,” Daniel said. “He’s dead.”

“Cheerful, Daniel,” the Colonel drawled. “Lemme get this straight – this guy comes from an _alternate_ alternate reality?”

Daniel thought about that one for a moment. “Apparently.” Sam suspected that actually experiencing an alternate reality had helped Daniel deal with the instinctive reaction, which was: _What the hell is going on here?_

“So does anyone but me have a problem with this?”

Teal’c was the one to address the issue that appeared to be most concerning the Colonel. “Which reality is actually real?”

“Thank you!”

Almost universally, her team-mates and commanding officers looked to Sam for the answer. “Well, all of them. They’re all valid universes; it’s just that there’s an infinite number of variations on them – each one diverging where a choice is made.”

“So that means that somewhere there’s a universe where I understood what you just said?” Colonel O’Neill asked, pointedly.

General Hammond appeared to decide that it was best to move the conversation back to its original purpose. “They’ve asked to be debriefed. I’d like you to participate.”

Sam glanced over at the Colonel who shrugged, although he looked distinctly uncomfortable.

In fact, he looked about as comfortable as the other Colonel O’Neill who walked into the room, took one look at Teal’c and lunged for him, his face a mask of fury.

“What the hell is _he_ doing here?” The SFs by the door leaped to restrain him, and the Colonel pushed his chair back, providing a very effective barrier between Teal’c and his would-be attacker.

“Hey!”

The Colonel’s shout came simultaneous with General Hammond’s barked, “Colonel!”

The voice of authority, combined with the restraining strength of the SF’s and the equally lean bulk of Colonel O’Neill stopped the alternate Colonel short. Teal’c hadn’t moved, even as the other man made for him, instead he regarded the alternate Colonel with a querying eyebrow.

“What’s _he_ doing here?” The O’Neill jerked his chin at Teal’c, restrained in body but not in spirit.

“He’s a member of SG-1,” Daniel said from beside Sam.

“And who the hell are you?”

“Oh, um, I’m Daniel Jackson. Also a member of SG-1.”

That didn’t impress O’Neill. His eyebrows went up and he glanced from Kawalsky to the Colonel.

“Have a seat, Colonel,” General Hammond said, indicating the chair down the end. The one on the other side of Teal’c.

It seemed to be trusting the alternate O’Neill’s ability to resist taking his anger out on Teal’c rather more than Sam would have trusted it. However, it appeared Colonel O’Neill shared Sam’s misgivings, because he touched Teal’c on the shoulder and indicated that they should swap seats.

When they were all finally settled, the Colonel was opposite Sam, with his other-world equivalent beside him. Teal’c sat up near the head of the table, next to General Hammond, and Sam was flanked by Daniel on one side and Kawalsky on the other.

Sam wanted to shake her head in confusion. While she understood the _principle_ of the situation rooted in physics concepts, the practical situation was...well, unbelievable.

And yet the evidence of her eyes – as well as the scientific proof of Janet’s examinations of both men – showed two identical men, sitting side by side. The only difference was the haircut - the newcomer looked a little better groomed. Two men who were each other’s might-have-been – a mere possibility to the other, a reality to themselves.

It would, she thought, be the work of a lifetime – the Colonel’s lifetime! – to determine what events in their lives had been the same and which had been different. Because there had to have been differences, no matter how clear it was that some things had been the same.

The military, for example. Stargate Command. The SGC. Known as the SGA in the other world, something must have differed in their development – otherwise the other world wouldn’t be under the thumb of the Goa’uld even now.

Sam stifled a shudder in her chair. It was a terrifying thought; the six billion people of Earth, exterminated, enslaved, becoming hosts to Goa’uld.

 _It didn’t happen here._

But it happened somewhere. Somewhere from which these two men had come, seeking a better world.

“First of all,” General Hammond began, “I’d like to say we know what you’ve been through. Dr. Jackson experienced a similar alternate reality some time ago on a mission to P3X-233.”

“We found the mirror on some mission anyway,” O’Neill said. “Someone stumbled across it and brought it back, and the next minute, S...Dr. Carter had a new toy to play with.”

“Sounds like Carter.” The Colonel quirked half a smile at her and she smiled, a little uneasy with the almost proprietal attitude he was taking towards her - to say nothing of O’Neill’s look. There was something too intense about the way he was watching her - it was getting on her nerves.

“Fortunately for us,” Hammond said, “Dr. Jackson was able to return with some intelligence that enabled SG-1 to stop the Goa’uld attack on Earth.”

Daniel shifted in his chair, just a little uncomfortable as he became the recipient of a pair of judging gazes.

“Sweet,” O’Neill commented. Then he frowned. “Jackson...Jackson...wait. You’re the guy who blew off Catherine Langford about the Stargate, right?”

“That’s two for two, Daniel,” the Colonel murmured. “Should we be grateful for your exalted presence on this project after all?”

Daniel shot him a brief, irritated glare before he turned his attention back to O’Neill. “As a matter of fact, I didn’t ‘blow off’ Catherine about the Stargate.” He pushed his glasses back up his nose, “That was the version of me that existed in your universe.”

“Assuming he exists anymore,” Kawalsky muttered cynically. He looked around the table, “Our last reports before we came through indicated that about half the Earth’s population is gone. The Goa’uld stayed in high orbit and bombed the living daylights out of us - and then, once we were all nice and tenderised, they put their footsoldiers down on the planet to round us up.” He glared down the table at Teal’c who regarded him emotionlessly. “Guys like him.”

“Teal’c’s a friend,” the Colonel said with a grim note of authority in his voice. “He’s proven himself time and time again.”

The two men weren’t convinced. Both of them shot wary looks at Teal’c, but it was the other Colonel who spoke. “You’ll have to excuse us for being slightly cynical.” He levelled a dark steel gaze at Teal’c, as though fixing the Jaffa’s face in his memory for later recall.

“And you’ll have to excuse us for not sharing it,” the Colonel retorted.

“Colonels.”

It still never ceased to amaze Sam just how the General managed to imbue a single word with such delicate warning. The two men - two variations on the same theme of O’Neill - could argue all they want; but in this mountain, Hammond commanded.

“We’ve brought the mirror to the mountain,” the General continued. “It’s under solid guard.”

“We can’t go back, sir,” Kawalsky said with a glance at the Colonel. “General Hammond - I mean, our General - ordered us to escape by any means possible.”

“He didn’t consider leaving himself?” Daniel asked, puzzled.

Sam knew the answer to that. “He was still assigned to his command, Daniel.” She glanced at the General, reassuring herself that it was the path he’d have taken, and saw the truth in his eyes. He also would have stayed at his post and ordered his people to escape.

Two worlds, one man. Some things didn’t change from world to world.

And nothing reinforced that more than the expression of the man who sat next to Colonel O’Neill, an odd look on his face. He regarded her with the expression of a man who’d seen something unexpected and unwelcome materialise before his eyes.

In that, he was quite a contrast to the Colonel, whose approval of her statement sent tendrils of warmth through her belly.

There was no doubt in Sam’s mind that the whole situation was just a little bit eerie. They were mirror images of each other, but there had been such significant differences between their world that one now lay under the thumb of the Goa’uld, and two men of that world had escaped to the other.

She couldn’t help wondering about those differences.

“So the question arises as to what we’re going to do with you,” General Hammond said, continuing the train of conversation he’d initially begun.

“We’ll take asylum, assuming you’re offering it,” O’Neill a moment later. “There’s nothing for us back there anymore.” The savage note rung through his voice, and Sam met his gaze and saw in his eyes the loss of the world he’d failed to protect.

“That will depend on my superiors, Colonel.”

“Although we can always do with more experienced officers,” the Colonel offered.

General Hammond nodded, all the acknowledgement he was willing to make at this time. “In the meantime, we’ve assigned you temporary accommodation.” He glanced at the SFs. “There’ll be a guard presence at your door.”

The other Colonel nodded. “Expected, sir. We’d do the same if it were the other way around.”

“Dismissed. Take them to the A3 quarters.”

That finished the formal debriefing quite effectively.

Informally, however...

“I know it’s been a long day,” Daniel began as they got up from their chairs.

“And we have no desire to make it any longer,” O’Neill said shortly, rolling his shoulders slightly as he stood and looked down the table at Daniel.

Sam’s team-mate was persistent. “Then maybe when you’ve had a chance to sit down and process it all...”

“Daniel...”

“Jack, I’ve only got a few questions...”

“Daniel, it’s _never_ ‘a few questions’ with you.”

Major Kawalsky had stood at the same time as O’Neill; now he frowned, “Questions such as?”

“Well, any of the differences between your world and ours,” Daniel said, with the tone of someone who felt it was perfectly obvious what he would ask. “It would help to find out what factors played a part in the Goa’uld being in a position to take over Earth...”

“Other than you?” O’Neill asked pointedly.

“Well, actually, not just me - you mentioned Sam too, but since you addressed her as ‘Dr. Carter’, I’m guessing she wasn’t in the military.”

“No,” O’Neill’s eyes slid from Daniel to Sam, and back to Daniel. “She wasn’t.”

“When Dr. Jackson decided to stick it out in the land of academia, Dr. Carter took on the job of getting the Stargate open,” Kawalsky said. “She was our Stargate expert.”

Not wholly surprising. In the other universe, she’d also opened the Stargate in lieu of Daniel. Sam opened her mouth to ask a question about Dr. Carter, and was interrupted by the Colonel, who’d picked up on something she hadn’t noticed.

“‘Was’?”

Something went very still in both men. O’Neill looked down at his hands, and Kawalsky looked to O’Neill before he said, “She died in the initial assault on the mountain. Wrong place, wrong time, and too many of them to fight.” There was a quiet bitterness in his voice as he spoke, and he shot a venomous glance at Teal’c.

“She was the one who had the idea about the mirror,” O’Neill said quietly, lifting his gaze to look at Sam. “Actually, she had a lot of ideas.”

“Sounds like Carter,” the Colonel said. He flashed her a quick almost-smile, but she didn’t smile back. There was something very intense in O’Neill’s gaze - something she’d never seen in her own commanding officer’s eyes - and she wasn’t sure what it was.

She didn’t have time to identify it; O’Neill turned to Daniel. “We’ve just lost everything we knew, Dr. Jackson. Give us time to ‘process that’ and you can ask all the questions you like.” Then he turned on his heel and strode out the door, the SFs following belatedly after.

Kawalsky moved to follow after O’Neill, then turned back. “He’s lost a lot,” he said with an odd note of apology in his voice. “This isn’t easy for him.”

Then he nodded at the Colonel, gave Teal’c a quick, hard look, and glanced at Sam with an odd expression on his face before he followed his friend out and down the stairs to the elevator corridor, leaving SG-1 around the briefing room table.

Colonel O’Neill leaned back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head, and shot a sardonic smile at Daniel.

“Good one, Daniel.”

“I just wanted...”

“They’ll be here for a long time,” Sam pointed out.

“As in the rest of their lives. You can quiz them later.”

“Considering Colonel O’Neill is not inclined to be friendly to Daniel Jackson, I believe that it will be much later that he will be gaining answers to his questions,” Teal’c stated.

“Okay, so maybe I should have waited--”

“Yes, Daniel, you should have waited.”

“--but you can’t deny that the situation is one of the most unusual we’ve ever been in. I mean, even when I was in the other world, I wasn’t looking at an alternate version of me. Just...ones of everyone else.”

“Daniel, they’ve just lost their entire world,” Sam said, reasoning with him. “Didn’t you have even one moment when you thought you’d never get back home again?”

“Well, yes, but...”

“Enough!” The Colonel put his hands up. “This is making my head hurt. I’ll be in the commissary if anyone has a line of conversation that isn’t going to make my head hurt.”

Daniel put on his best ‘innocent’ gaze. “So I shouldn’t try to tell you about the civilisation that SG-12 located on P1M-202? They had a fascinating runic system of language…”

Colonel O’Neill stood up. “I’ll be in the commissary. Teal’c. Carter. Daniel.” He hotfooted his way out of the briefing room as Sam and Teal’c exchanged rueful glances.

“What?” Daniel asked, in mild and not-quite-so-innocent tones.

Sam shook her head, smiling, and went off to her lab.

*

When Corporal Anselm brought the news that the other Colonel O’Neill had requested her presence in his quarters, Sam didn’t think anything of it.

As she closed down her laptop and put away her devices for the night, Sam tried to imagine what it would be like to travel through the mirror. After Daniel’s experience on P3X-233, the mirror had been locked away, presumed useless without the controller.

They were lucky that the storage room in Area 51 was monitored so closely. And that their guests had been willing to co-operate.

Even if the situation in which they found themselves was more than a little strange.

At the General’s request, Sam and her team-mates were staying on base overnight.

It wasn’t much of a hardship for Teal’c, Daniel, or herself, although the Colonel was antsy. Still, he understood what was being requested, as well as why.

Kawalsky and the other Colonel O’Neill - she was going to think of him just as O’Neill for the sake of her sanity - were unfamiliar, new, and unknown. And if they were going to stay around, then SG-1 would have to get used to them, and they’d have to get used to SG-1.

Sam suspected that the Colonel’s head wasn’t going to be the only one hurting by the end of it.

Out in the corridor, heading up towards the guest quarters, Sam pondered why the Colonel’s counterpart had asked for her to come down. She had a feeling it had something to do with her counterpart - the woman from the other world who’d died in the first wave of attackers on the mountain.

Perhaps the Sam Carter from the other universe hadn’t been in the military, but she’d been known to both men, respected by them. A familiar face in this SGC would be a welcome sight to them - more so than the Colonel, who would only remind them that they weren’t home, Daniel, who was unknown to them, or Teal’c, who was the enemy - at least in their minds.

There were going to be a _lot_ of headaches over this.

She met the airman carrying a dinner tray in the corridor outside the A3 guestrooms, and took it from him. “It’s okay,” she said. “Just knock on the door and I’ll take it in.”

He nodded, knocked, and left.

The gruff call of ‘come in’ made her smile in spite of herself. She imagined she’d walk in and find him playing with a yo-yo or some small toy that he’d acquired - if he was anything like her Colonel O’Neill.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, his back turned to her as he leaned down with his elbows on his knees.

“Dinner, sir,” she said, and watched him turn sharply. “Sir?” He’d requested her presence, why would her appearance be such a surprise?

“I...ah... Thanks.” He stood and crossed the room quickly, the brisk movements familiar. His fingers brushed hers as he took the tray from her and placed it on the table.

Left with nothing to do, Sam remained where she was, uncertain what he wanted to do. “I can come back when you’re finished, if you like.”

“No.” He took a step towards her, one hand out before he stopped. “Please stay.” The dark eyes rested on her face, then flickered away. “I’ve been getting tired of eating alone,” he said. “And you’re prettier than Kawalsky.”

Sam blinked at the last comment. It wasn’t meant in a demeaning way, but it threw her off-balance. Compliments on her looks weren’t run-of-the-mill at the SGC. “Sir?”

O’Neill indicated the table. “Sit, Sa-- Major.”

He waited until she was seated before he sat down himself - a courtesy she appreciated, but which seemed strange, coming from the Colonel. Sam covered it by asking a question, curious about why he’d asked to see her. “You requested my presence?”

“Tell me about yourself. You joined the military.”

“Yes. I...I guess she - my counterpart - didn’t?”

O’Neill shook his head as he lifted the lid off the food. “Even the food’s familiar.”

“There are a lot of similarities between our worlds.”

“And some very large differences.” There was an almost painful note to his voice, but Sam could read nothing particular in his expression as he shovelled the food around his plate.

It was plain that he wasn’t really hungry, but he seemed to want her to think he was.

His eyes kept straying to her face. When she looked directly at him, he looked away, unwilling to be caught staring. It was a little unnerving, but Sam wasn’t willing to call him on it. He’d just lost his entire world, everything and everyone he knew, and what he was seeing here was very different to what he’d known in the other world.

Sam had a feeling the other Samantha Carter in his world had been very different to her.

“I signed up for the Academy, straight out of school,” she said. “My dad’s a general - two stars. I got a doctorate in Astrophysics, did some piloting, was assigned to the Pentagon’s scientific division after I graduated.”

“And got on the Stargate project with Catherine Langford.”

“Only briefly,” she corrected. It had been five years ago, but the memory of General West’s dismissal still stung. All her work had been pushed aside, all her efforts forgotten, simply because he looked at her and saw General Carter’s daughter.

He nodded. “West?”

“Yes.”

“Sam didn’t have much luck with him either. But they didn’t have anyone else to work on the project so she stayed. Worked it out, got it open.” His eyes gleamed with pride as he glanced up from the stroganoff and met her gaze.

Staring into those eyes, Sam found her breath caught in her throat.

He’d always been a commander worth serving. She’d known that from the first time she read his file. The commendations, the reports - even blacked out beneath the secrecy clause, Sam had read between the lines and known that this was a man who it would be worth seeing in action.

She’d seen him only once before they met in the SGC: the day that she was escorted out of the project - one scientist too many for West’s liking, and a Carter to boot. He’d been blank then, empty with his son’s death. The mission to Abydos had changed his views, given him new life - a new chance.

But the Stargate project had been deep-sixed, and Sam had gone back to work at the Pentagon.

“I didn’t get much of a chance to open it here,” she said. “Daniel did most of it. I was working on the computer systems, not the codes to open it.”

O’Neill shrugged. “I don’t know how she did it, she tried to explain it to me but it was just...you know?” He paused. “Right. Okay, so you don’t.”

It was hard to keep the smile from her face. The more some things changed, the more other things didn’t.

“I know,” Sam said. “He-- You-- He isn’t good with my explanations.”

God knew she’d tried to explain it to him in the simplest terms possible, but astrophysics didn’t lend itself to simplicity.

“You give them too fast. I can’t keep up.” The direct pronoun worried her for a moment, before she reconciled it to the similarities between him and her commanding officer. Sitting here, in the SGC, with a trusted friend opposite him, he wouldn’t think about his word choice.

He finally ate a mouthful of the stroganoff, wincing as he chewed. “You know, the food here isn’t any better than...” He paused and the sudden stillness was as telling as a convulsion of pain, but after a moment, he continued on, as though the pause hadn’t happened. “I guess institution food is the same through all realities.”

Unsure of what to say, Sam half-smiled. “It’s better than anything I can produce,” she pointed out. “You always said I could burn water.”

It had been an attempt to lighten the mood, to bring the attention off what he’d lost and invite him to more familiar, teasing ground.

It failed.

The sudden, stricken expression on his face stole her breath. His defences came down, and she was looking into Jack O’Neill’s naked heart.

And she knew why he’d asked her here.

“You didn’t know, did you?”

His voice was soft, almost tender. Not the voice of a senior officer or a commander - not even the voice of a colleague or friend.

It shocked her.

Perhaps it shouldn’t have, given Daniel’s revelation about the last alternate reality he’d stumbled across, but she’d thought it an aberration - unusual, different. Things weren’t like that around here.

Sam didn’t realise she’d flinched and looked away until she saw hurt flicker across his face. He looked down at his meal, set down his fork and folded his hands in his lap, like a boy waiting for a reprimand.

 _Say something. Don’t just sit there like a raw recruit - say something!_

Sam struggled for words.

“How...how long?”

O’Neill looked down into his food. “One year. The shortest year of my life.” He set down his fork and sat back in his chair, hands folded in his lap; almost relaxed but for the stillness. The Colonel didn’t do still unless he was in ‘lockdown’ mode - forced to restfulness.

What did you say at a time like this? What words did she have to help him? And should she even try, given what her counterpart had been to this man - was it fair to torment him with that?

This was another world - one where Sam Carter had gone into the military, had served alongside Jack O’Neill as a subordinate officer, _could not_ enter into a relationship the way Dr. Samantha Carter had with the man sitting across from her.

He seemed to sense his hesitation, because he shifted in his chair, reaching around to the jacket he’d hung on the back of the chair. After a few seconds, he turned back with a photo in his hand, and placed it gently, face-up on the table between them.

His gaze was intense, dark and bittersweet as rich chocolate, and after a moment, Sam leaned forward, compelled by the need in his eyes.

It was unmistakeably a wedding photo - wedding gown, dress blues, cream satin and a cake. The woman in it was long-haired and laughing, the man behind her dressed in military blues and grinning as he held his wife around the waist.

They looked...happy. Content in this frozen moment of time, without the agony of loss she saw in him now, the long hands stilled with the tension of the moment.

“She went up to the science levels to grab something – some technology she thought might be able to reach some allies. I told her it was dangerous. She agreed but told me if there was the slightest chance she could bring in the cavalry...” He exhaled, sat back, stared at his fingers. “I said I’d go with her, she told me I was needed in the control room and not to be an idiot.”

Sam had to smile at the thought of telling her commanding officer not to be an idiot. “And the Jaffa came.”

“Led by your ‘friend,’” O’Neill said, his voice taking on a hard edge.

A shiver quivered through her soul. “Things are different here,” she said, and she wasn’t only referring to Teal’c.

Sam stood up from the table, leaving the photo behind. She could feel him watching her, the dark eyes tracking her movements through the dim light of the room. It was an oppressive sensation - the weight of expectation that pushed down on her, however unintentional.

“I guess you never thought about him like that.”

“I...” To say ‘no’ would be a lie. But there was a vast difference between briefly entertaining the thought and giving it any serious consideration. She was Major Sam Carter, United States Air Force, and Colonel Jack O’Neill was her direct commander. The rules were different here. “Daniel went to another reality just over a year ago. Our counterparts were engaged.”

“Does it make it easier to distance yourself from it?”

Sam turned. “Sir?”

“‘Our counterparts,’” he quoted back at her. A faint smile touched his mouth, but there were vulnerable edges to his expression. “You were never comfortable with me coming to see you while we were at work.”

“It’s not easy for a woman in the military - or working with the military,” Sam began. “Sir...”

“Sam.”

It was the way he said her name that frightened her, so quiet and sure, with none of the questions she heard in the Colonel’s voice.

As he stood up from the table, Sam felt the urge to turn around and walk out of the too-small room, to run from the possibilities that she’d never entertained - not like this. There were reasons the emotional door between her and the Colonel remained closed.

“I’m not her.”

“I know.”

“I can’t be her.”

“I’m not asking you to.” Slowly, as though she was a wild creature to avoid frightening, O’Neill stood. “You’re not comfortable with this - with us. I know you, Sam. You’re not all that different here.”

Sam went back to the table, only to pause when he stepped out and around it, intercepting her before she reached the chair.

“Please.”

She hesitated, then saw the fear of her rejection in his eyes. He’d lost something she couldn’t comprehend and couldn’t replace. But when all was said and done, he was still Jack O’Neill. And if she wasn’t the woman he’d lost, she was still Sam Carter - subordinate and, possibly, friend.

Slowly, Sam let him slip his arms around her, slid her arms around his chest as though he was fragile and might splinter against her. His cheek brushed hers, settling into the hug with a familiarity that felt so easy and so dangerous, and the warmth that rushed through her was only partly because of his body heat.

“God, Sam” he murmured into her hair. “I thought I’d lost you...”

She tensed at his words, but didn’t pull away.

*

Jack had gone looking for Carter earlier.

She wasn’t in her lab, she wasn’t in Daniel’s lab, and Teal’c hadn’t seen her since dinner. The quarters that had been assigned to her tonight were empty, and Jack was becoming worried by her absence.

One of the sergeants bumped into him outside the personnel quarters. “Uh, Colonel?”

“Sergeant...Anselm, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. Uh, if you’re looking for Major Carter, then Colonel O’Neill asked to see her.” The young man stuttered a little. “I...I mean the other one.”

A little surprised by the unexpected assistance, Jack blinked. “Thank you, Sergeant.”

This was going to cause no end of trouble. Jack could see it. And if they were allowed to stay...

Jack swiped his card at the elevators and waited. Well, they’d deal with this situation. They’d have to. It wasn’t the first time the SGC had taken in strays - although at least Teal’c belonged to this universe.

As he rocked back on his heels, and stuck his hands in his pockets, Jack reflected that he was _so_ not going to mention to _anyone_ his definition of Teal’c as a ‘stray’ - particularly not Teal’c.

The elevator arrived, blue doors sliding back to reveal the rotund figure of the General.

“General.”

“Colonel. I’ve had word from the President.” Hammond didn’t beat around the bush. “They can stay.”

“That was quick.”

“Too quick. God knows what we’re getting into.”

Jack didn’t bother holding the lift. He could get it later - this was important now. “I take it you figure there’s a down side?”

Hammond had the expression of a man who’d seen too many up-sides turn down long before anyone had planned they would. “Some lines aren’t meant to be crossed,” he said. “But I’ve been encouraged to find a way to incorporate them into this command.”

“I get dibs on SG-1,” Jack said lightly, hoping to cheer the old man up.

The exasperated look his superior officer gave him said he’d succeeded. “Just for that, you can have the pleasure of telling them they’re cleared to stay, Colonel,” Hammond said, walking off down the corridor. “Goodnight, Jack.”

Kawalsky was easy enough to inform. A few lines of information, a query after any of the Major’s needs, and that was that, but for the man’s parting inquiry. “You’re going to tell the Colonel, sir? The...other one?”

“I’m on my way now.” Jack paused. He’d known Charlie Kawalsky for years; long enough to know when the man had reservations about something. And while Jack didn’t _know_ this man, he recognised the same habits _his_ Kawalsky had sported. “All right, spit it out, Major.”

Kawalsky paused. “Sir, he’s lost a lot.”

“So did you.”

“This situation is particularly difficult on him, though.” The man stood to attention, formally stiff in a manner that Jack hadn’t seen since the early days of their friendship. “Go easy.”

“Is that an order?”

“A respectful request, sir.”

Jack eyed him. Whatever was between the other O’Neill and Kawalsky, there was a genuine care and affection in the words. “I’ll be nice,” he assured Kawalsky as he reached for the doorknob.

As the door closed behind him, Jack reflected that Kawalsky seemed about as uncomfortable with Jack as Jack was with him. Which was strange, considering that he and the other O’Neill seemed so very buddy-buddy. Then again, it had to be weird, seeing double.

Probably, he reflected as he proceeded down the hall and saw Carter emerging from the other guestroom, as weird as it would be for the two men looking at Carter, who they’d known at their other SGC and who’d died in that world.

It filled him with a moment of sudden panic, cold as ice, the vision forming, swift as a flush through his body. Like a dream - or a nightmare - he saw Carter tumbled into a corner like a rag doll discarded, limbs askew and a great burned hole in her belly as Jaffa tramped past.

It hadn’t happened here.

Jack fixed an easy expression on his face, even as he felt his brow break into a cold sweat.

She caught sight of him from the corner of her eye. “Sir.”

“Carter. General Hammond just informed me that they’re cleared to stay. I just told Kawalsky.”

There was a moment when she looked slightly apprehensive, then glanced back at the door from which she’d just come. “I don’t think it would be such a good idea to tell him at this moment, sir. He’s still dealing with getting out of the situation alive when...others didn’t.”

Survivor’s guilt. Jack knew how that went. “I guess it can wait overnight.” He fell into step beside her, sneaking glances at her as they went along.

She seemed subdued. Carter wasn’t the most flamboyant of personalities, but around the time that she wasn’t expounding on the amazing possibilities that this situation presented, Jack got suspicious.

“You okay?”

“Sir?”

“You just seem rather quiet.”

“Oh...” It took her a moment to rally. “I just... The other Colonel wanted to know a bit more about this universe.”

“I guess you’re someone he’s used to dealing with,” Jack noted. The other guy had been very focused on Carter during the debriefing - probably because he didn’t know anyone else in the room, with the exception of Hammond. And Jack. But that was a whole new level of strangeness.

“Frankly, Carter, I’m weirded out by this,” he confided. “I mean, I’m me. I know that. But he’s also me. And that’s just...weird.”

She looked like she wanted to laugh at his description – at least for a moment. Then, something flitted across her face, too fast for him to identify. “He’s not _you_ , you, sir. He’s just someone who happens to share the same name, same genes, and pretty much the same personality as you. But his history...” Carter paused. “His history is very different.”

Jack grimaced. “Yeah, well, the Goa’uld just attacked his version of Earth. I think that counts as ‘different.’”

They reached the elevators and she pulled out her card and swiped it.

“I get the feeling you unnerve him,” he said after a minute. “Must be the whole military thing.”

Rather than smiling like he’d expected, she seemed pensive. “It took you a while to get used to me, too, sir.”

“Oh, so you’re going to bring that up, are you?” He asked, a little nettled that she’d reminded him. No, he hadn’t been the most welcoming of commanding officers to begin with, but once he actually started working with her, he’d discovered there was a lot more to Captain Carter than an obedient military officer.

“If they’re going to stay here, it’ll probably take a while for him to get used to it,” she murmured as the lift arrived. And there was something else in her voice, something that made Jack turn to face her as they got in and the doors closed behind them.

“Okay, what is it?” He used his best ‘you’d better tell me’ voice on her, and watched her shake her head, a faint smile poking the corners of her mouth upwards. Even then, there was a grim quality to her amusement. “Carter...”

“Colonel, you’re used to being the commander of SG-1. You’re used to being in the thick of things around here.” She waved a hand in the air, indicating the SGC. “Now imagine you find yourself in a command that’s almost exactly like this. You know the people, you know the way things are done, you’re used to having the authority, but there’s already someone in your role doing what you do, you’re no longer necessary”

“You’re saying that he’s gonna feel redundant?” Jack didn’t like the idea of being redundant. Okay, so he wasn’t the most sympathetic of people, but this wasn’t just anyone – this was _him_. Sort of. He knew exactly how he’d feel in a place where there was already a version of him, and it wasn’t a nice thought. And knowing how he’d feel in such a place – knowing how the _other_ him would feel walking the corridors of the SGC...

“I’m saying that he won’t have an easy time of it,” she said. “After all, you’re already here doing his job.”

“It’s my job!”

She didn’t bother answering him on that. And he knew why.

He sighed. “Look, Kawalsky’s already suggested I ‘go easy’ on the other me,” he muttered. “But it’s not a question of going easy. They’ve got information that could be valuable...”

“Sir, it’s not just the job or the information.”

“Then what is it?”

Carter hesitated. “It’s...the people, sir. He has to develop most of his relationships from scratch.”

“Isn’t that how most people develop their relationships in the first place?”

She sighed as the doors opened at the personnel quarters. “Yes, sir.”

“Is this the part where I have to ‘go easy’ on him?” Jack asked, only partly rhetorical in his query.

He saw the roll of her eyes as she turned away, the smile that would usually be exasperated and amused, but tonight seemed a little pained. “Goodnight, sir.”

Jack stood and watched her go, thinking that he should turn away, but unable to take his eyes off her as she headed to her quarters.

 _It didn’t happen here._

*

Next morning, restless from his nightmare visions of the SGC taken over by the Goa’uld and Earth invaded, Jack walked into the commissary to discover that his counterpart was already up and had co-opted his coffee.

The man was _drinking_ Jack’s _coffee_ \- the coffee that the commissary staff made especially for him, just the way he liked it.

While he waited for the confused staff to make him up another mug, Jack took his toast over to ‘his’ table to wait for the rest of his team to turn up.

Teal’c was first, striding in and graciously accepting the herbal tea he preferred of a morning and collecting his significantly-sized breakfast before sitting down opposite Jack. “O’Neill.”

“Teal’c. Can you believe they gave my coffee away?”

One dark eyebrow arched beside the gold brand. “To the other you?”

“Yeah. He got in here earlier than me.” Jack waved a hand as Carter strode in, looking far too fresh and perky for 0700 hours. Daniel shambled in a moment later, hurrying to catch up with her along the serving line. SG-1 wasn’t due to go on duty for another hour, but when his team were all on base overnight, it was an unspoken rule that they met in the commissary for breakfast - even if that breakfast consisted of nothing more than a cup of coffee - as in Daniel’s case.

Daniel sat down beside Jack. “Hey.” That was usually all they got out of Daniel before he’d had at least half a cup of coffee, so Jack didn’t bother for conversation. He, Carter, and Teal’c were all roughly functional after waking - and Carter somehow managed to be a damn sight better than merely ‘functional’ - but Daniel took a bit of kick-starting before he reached full throttle.

The archaeologist looked like he was on the verge of joining the human race by the time Carter reached the table with her breakfast and Jack’s coffee.

“Feeling lazy this morning, sir?”

He rolled his eyes. “The other me snagged my coffee.”

Her mouth curved as she sat down. “Technically, sir, it’s his coffee, too.”

“Yeah, well...” Considering the other guy had lost his world, Jack grudgingly figured that he could let a mug of coffee slip. “The staff had better get used to making up two mugs.”

Daniel muttered something to the effect of ‘if they don’t want you nagging them they will.’

“I never nag,” he protested as his team-mates affixed him with sceptical expressions. “I don’t!”

Jack was rather offended that, after exchanging amused and exasperated looks with each other, they promptly went back to consumption of their meal.

“So, I guess we’ve all heard the news, then,” Daniel said, managing the first coherently-uttered sentence of the day featuring actual syllables.

“That the NID have finally gotten permission to take Teal’c away?” Jack sniffed. “That’s old news.”

Across the table, Carter bit back a grin and Teal’c raised both eyebrows, as Daniel spluttered through a mouthful of coffee.

“I mean that our unexpected guests are allowed to...” Daniel broke off and changed topic with a suddenness that would have given traffic lights a run for its money. “Anyway, I think that the ruins on 405 could be really interesting, if you’d only push the General to let us go. Oh, hi, Colonel.”

Jack had watched the two men cross the commissary to the stares and amazement of the workers and the handful of personnel eating breakfast. The other him - he supposed he was going to have to find some kind of a term to distinguish himself from his...oh, what was the term Carter had used last night? That was right. His _counterpart_. He and his counterpart were going to have to work out how they were going to do this naming thing.

Because there was no way Jack was changing his name. He’d lived with it all his life and this was _his_ universe.

And he was _not_ sharing his house, either.

“Morning, folks.” The other him and Kawalsky sat down at the next table over, on the other side of Carter and Daniel.

Jack wondered if he really sounded like that when he talked. “Morning.”

Kawalsky glanced around the room, nodding at a couple of the people who it seemed he knew. Some of them nodded back, but a few looked away.

O’Neill ignored the rest of the room, his gaze swapping between Carter and Jack. “You guys usually have breakfast in the commissary?”

“Team tradition,” Jack replied. “I also usually have my coffee waiting for me when I get in.”

The other man’s smile had an edge to it. “Sorry about that. They handed it to me when I walked in. Mustn’t have gotten the memo.”

“Actually, breakfast is only when we’ve stayed on base overnight,” Daniel explained, setting down his mug, by now, probably empty. “Welcome to our Earth, by the way.”

“Thanks,” said O’Neill, glancing at Carter before he leaned back in his chair. “So, I’m guessing I won’t be commanding SG-1 anymore,” said the other O’Neill dryly.

“Over my dead body,” Jack responded without missing a beat.

“Just checkin’.”

“So,” Daniel began, “I imagine our versions of SG-1 are very different since Major Kawalsky didn’t recognise me, and Teal’c’s still serving under Apophis... Was your version of Sam on SG-1?”

O’Neill and Kawalsky exchanged a glance, and Carter looked down into her cereal bowl. “No,” O’Neill said, shortly. “She wasn’t. Henry Boyd, Will Lawson, and Tony Markovski.”

“Boyd,” Daniel muttered before looking over at Jack with a frown. “Wasn’t that the name of the Captain who got caught in the black hole last year?”

Jack grimaced as he glared at Daniel. “Yes, Daniel, it was.”

“Oh.” Chastened, Daniel hesitated a moment. “Sorry.”

“Black hole?” Kawalsky asked.

Jack’s team exchanged looks. Somehow, they all ended up looking at Jack - except Jack himself, of course. Although that was covered by O’Neill looking at him with an arch of the eyebrow that Jack just felt like returning.

Oh, God, this was giving him a headache - and it was only the first day.

“You’ll probably read about it in your full briefing,” he said mildly.

“Yeah,” O’Neill muttered. “I’m looking forward to that. How long have you been in operation? Four ye--aaaaaugh!”

The headache hit Jack like a rubber bat to his skull at the same time as his counterpart _blurred_ , his face twisting and shifting like he was being torn apart. Whatever was happening to the other man, Jack was _feeling_ it - if not as strongly as it seemed to be affecting the other man.

Kawalsky had leapt to his feet and was yelling for the doc, Teal’c was asking after Jack, while Carter had reached out to O’Neill. Her hand was grabbed and gripped by long fingers whose knuckles were whitening, even as O’Neill’s face seemed to blur and twist, dragging through the air so something like a ghost-version of his face tore away from his head, the mouth stretched wide open in an echoing scream.

Then it was over.

The visual blurriness about O’Neill vanished, to be replaced by Jack’s mental blurriness as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. His brain was not willing to co-operate.

His counterpart was braced against the table with one hand, panting, while people were standing back, and Daniel was saying something about Doc Fraiser.

“Okay,” Jack managed, feeling his voice cutting through his throat like rusty razor blades. “What the hell was that?”

*

Daniel rolled the pen across the pad of paper on the briefing room table, an absent-minded habit as he considered the problem of the alternate Jack O’Neill and Major Kawalsky. “So he’s going to die here.”

“Nobody is going to die here,” Jack said with stubborn firmness.

“Uh, actually, sir...”

“ _Nobody_ is going to die here,” he repeated. “Particularly not me.”

Daniel exchanged glances with Sam. A desire to avoid death was a natural and instinctive reaction in all humanity - and most of the peoples Daniel had met in his travels through the Stargate. And it had to be weird for Jack, looking at his own face and his own body and the blurring convulsions that tore at the other man’s flesh.

But there was a determination not to sit down and take it quietly and there was outright denial. From what Daniel could see, Jack was presently all the way in the river and about to drown.

“I can’t treat it,” Janet said, addressing her remarks to the General who’d been listening to the explanation of what had just happened to his newest guests on base with the expression of a man who’d seen too many deals turn sour to be really surprised. “Major Carter says it’s not medical, and although I can give Colonel O’Neill - our one - something for the headaches he experiences, I can’t stop what’s happening to the other Colonel.”

“Major?”

“Sir, it’s a side effect of travelling through the quantum mirror. Colonel O’Neill’s convulsions are related to the laws of this universe - possibly of our very existence - the increased entropy of both him and this universe’s Colonel O’Neill in the same place at the same time means one of them has to give way.”

“So it’s me or him?” Jack questioned. “I’m just asking,” he protested when everyone turned to look at him.

“How about we look at solutions to this problem,” General Hammond said, fixing Jack with a firm look.

“There does not appear to be any solution,” Teal’c said. “Other than sending him back to his world.”

Daniel wondered if Teal’c was contemplating this whole situation as a ‘things in which Jaffa should not meddle’ and, in his own practical way, trying to resolve it without strictly saying that he thought his earthling allies were insane and needed a staff weapon smacked across their thick skulls.

Sometimes it was hard to tell with Teal’c.

“If we go back, then the Goa’uld will kill us,” said Major Kawalsky as he came in the door, followed by O’Neill.

The two men saluted the General, who indicated that they should sit. At least, this time, there was no outcry about Teal’c’s place at the table.

“We?” O’Neill inquired.

“I’m not letting you go back alone, Jack. You go, I go.”

“Never leave a man behind?” Daniel offered, and received an appraising look from both the newcomers as well as Jack.

O’Neill looked at Jack. “I sense someone’s delicate influence.”

“He learns faster than you’d think.”

“You know, I think I’m glad that I won’t have to deal with two of you,” Daniel said, risking a bit of bluntness. “One of you is bad enough - but two...?”

General Hammond coughed. It wasn’t entirely just to bring the topic back to conversation. And as Daniel glanced sideways at Sam, he saw her twitch her smile back behind the ‘proper military subordinate’ expression she usually used.

But her eyes lingered on O’Neill for a moment, making him wonder. When O’Neill looked back at her and she quickly looked away, Daniel wondered even more, nearly missing the General’s statement about how the idea of abandoning any man or woman to the Goa’uld was anathema.

“Sir, with all due respect, I’d rather die fast than be.... torn apart by these entropy gaseous tremors?” O’Neill glanced at Sam.

“Entropic cascade tremors, sir.”

“Entropic cascade tremors,” O’Neill repeated. “I’d prefer to go out fighting.”

Kawalsky began to chime in, but Daniel had spotted a hint of a possible solution somewhere ahead, and began to chase it.

“Actually,” he interrupted, “what if you could _stay in_ , fighting?”

He had the attention - and confusion - of the briefing room. “Huh?”

Under other circumstances, Daniel might have found it funny that Jack and his counterpart spoke at exactly the same time in exactly the same, bewildered tones of voice, but he had other concerns.

“We owe them a favour,” he said out loud. “General O’Neill from the reality I visited let me come back here to warn our world. Without that, we’d be in the same straits that they are.”

“Dr. Jackson, while it’s a nice idea, the resources of their entire world couldn’t stop the Goa’uld.” General Hammond was sceptical - as was his job. But the idea had hold of Daniel now, and he could see how it would all work.

“And the resources of ours?”

Beside him, Sam frowned. “What do we have that they don’t?”

“Well, me, for starters.” Daniel grinned as Jack opened his mouth to say something to the effect of, _Over my dead, rotting corpse, Daniel._ He’d been kidding about that - mostly. “But seriously, our history is one big difference between the two worlds - what’s already happened to us. We met the Asgard,” Daniel said. “They didn’t.”

“And?”

“So if we contact the Asgard in their world, maybe they’ll be willing to help out against the Goa’uld,” Daniel said, wondering if this really was a good idea, or if he was just imagining it.

“The Asgard are not easy to contact,” Teal’c noted.

“We’ve done it before,” Daniel pointed out. “Or, rather, Jack has.”

While everyone looked at Jack, Sam caught on to Daniel’s plan immediately. “The device the Colonel used in conjunction with the dialling program. But we couldn’t reach them that way, anyway. The device was good for one use only, and we never worked out how the Colonel got it to do what it did.”

“Necessity is the mother of all invention,” said Daniel glibly, prompting Sam to roll her eyes at him.

“This isn’t necessity, Daniel. I don’t know that I have the technical ability to get it to work again.”

But if she wasn’t convinced of her capability, at least one other person in the room was. “You can fix it,” O’Neill said, looking at Sam. “I know you can.”

Sam didn’t quite squirm in her chair as Daniel blinked at the absolute faith in that statement. While Jack - all their team and Hammond and the base - was confident in Sam’s ability to fix things, it was rarely stated quite so explicitly.

Across the table, Teal’c raised an eyebrow and Jack leaned back in his chair. “Oh, Carter’s our best,” he said in a mild tone of voice that suggested he was about to get into ‘back off’ mode the way he did with some of the men they met off-world when...

 _Wait a minute..._

Daniel hardly heard Teal’c’s statement that getting to the Stargate would be a difficult enterprise. He was too busy watching O’Neill.

O’Neill looked back at him, flat and uncompromising - the man Daniel remembered from the first Abydos trip. The man Daniel remembered from the other SGC, advanced to General and holding the defences for Earth against the Goa’uld.

That O’Neill had also lost his world, and a Dr. Samantha Carter who’d been his fiancée.

Daniel had wondered before. He was pretty sure he knew now.

He wondered if Sam had any idea.

Before he could really study his team-mate, his attention was caught by the changing tone of the conversation - from ‘out of the question’ to ‘one chance in a million.’

“That’s where I come in,” Kawalsky was saying in answer to Teal’c.

“If he’s off getting schmoozy with Thor, you’re going to need someone to watch your back,” said Jack immediately, swinging back and forth in his chair.

Sam had shaken off her discomfort at O’Neill’s scrutiny. “You’ll need someone who can start up the systems and load in the dialling program.”

“You will also require my assistance,” Teal’c said. If the Jaffa was resigned to the insanity of this course of action - and Daniel had no doubt that it was insanity and a long shot - then he was not about to let his allies walk into a situation without an advantage.

 _Attaboy, Teal’c!_

Neither O’Neill nor Major Kawalsky looked particularly happy at that. “We can handle it,” Kawalsky said immediately.

Daniel headed that one off at the pass. “Teal’c looks like an enemy to you,” Daniel said. “That doesn’t mean he _is_ one. That would be an advantage, too.”

O’Neill looked at Jack again. “He _does_ learn fast.”

“Oh, it’s taken a while,” Jack retorted. But the quirk at the corner of his lips indicated that he was mostly joking. “General?”

Sometimes Daniel wondered if General Hammond felt a little like an owner towed along behind his enthusiastically running dog. Although it didn’t happen that often, there were times when the SGC seemed like a particularly bad case of the tail wagging the dog.

Of course, if the General felt that way, the man never showed it, but maintained the calm that he’d developed in a long and busy military career.

“If Major Carter can get the Asgard device working,” the General said, “then you have a go.”

*

The problem was not that Sam couldn’t get the Asgard device working.

She thought she had a solution, although it was difficult going, and she could feel the pressure of expectation on her. But it wasn’t a technical problem that occupied her at this moment.

She just couldn’t work with the Colonel’s counterpart wandering around her lab.

Sam had always found it difficul to work on something with the Colonel around. He had a tendency to looking into things, to peer around and pick up anything that he thought looked interesting. When he first started coming into her lab to ‘take a break and see what she was doing’, Sam hadn’t thought anything much of it at all.

She’d noticed he did it a lot more often these days, and hadn’t thought anything of it, either. They were team-mates, and possibly even ‘friends’ - although she would never have openly labelled him as such. Maybe it was better to use that old saw phrase, ‘kindred spirits’ to describe their relationship - a similarity and commonality in their work and their personalities.

Sam had been careful not to think of it as anything more.

Until a day ago, she’d succeeded.

After about fifteen minutes of watching him wander around and poke things, Sam intervened. “Sir, I can’t work with you...hovering.”

He turned from the bookshelf. “I’m not hovering.”

Sam looked up at him, the nervousness increasing a hundredfold. “You are. Sir. With all due respect, please...go bother Daniel. Or something.”

He didn’t move. Instead, he just studied her face, and she had the sudden urge to duck her head. This man was not her commanding officer – he was a man who had intimate knowledge of her. More correctly, he had intimate knowledge of Sam Carter, just not _this_ Sam Carter. But the one would probably translate to the other with relative ease – after all, although the defining difference between Sam and her counterpart had been their choice of career, the essentials of her personality were most likely the same.

So she wasn’t entirely surprised by the piercing question he asked of her: “Why don’t you like having me around?”

And she had an answer to his question. “Because you don’t see me, sir,” she said quietly. “You see your wife.”

“You _are_ my wife.”

“ _I’m_ not,” she said. “I, Major Sam Carter, am not your wife, sir.”

“You’re her,” he said, stubborn as a mule.

“Are you him?” Her response was blunt. She saw his mouth tighten in simultaneous acceptance and denial of what she had said, saw the flash of grief that ran nakedly across his face.

She’d been unkind because she couldn’t let him hold onto false hope. She couldn’t let him believe that he had his wife back – because Sam wasn’t his wife. She was just a woman with the same name, the same face, and the same DNA as the woman he’d married – but their histories and the defining points of their life had made them two different women in two very different worlds.

 _She_ was not his wife.

“Look, about yesterday...”

“There’s nothing to apologise for.”

“You were uncomfortable.”

Sam shrugged as she studied the device, making light of her discomfort the previous night. “I’m just not used to the idea that...”

“That you were married to me?” O’Neill finished her statement before he realised she was looking behind him.

He turned on one heel. Colonel O’Neill was leaning against the door, his hands in his pockets as he looked from his counterpart to Sam and back to his counterpart. “Well,” he said lightly. “This is uncomfortable.”

“Oh, you think?”

Sam reflected that they had had no idea. Last night, as she prepared to bed, she’d wondered if she would ever become accustomed to both of them in the SGC, so much the same man - possibly too much so.

 _One of you is bad enough - but two?_

And Daniel didn’t even know the whole of it.

“I’m guessing that you’re looking for Sam?”

“And I seem to have found her.” The Colonel’s eyes narrowed. “I came to check up the major’s progress on the device.” The slight lean on her rank suggested that he had noted the use of her name and was giving her a bit of space in which to ease back from the intimacy implied.

“And it’s only been fifteen minutes.”

“Carter can do amazing things in fifteen minutes.”

“Yeah, I know that already.”

Sam didn’t have to look up to see the smirk - she could hear it in his voice.

Her neck and throat heated. There was no reason to think so, but she guessed he wasn’t talking about her technical skills.

“I haven’t gotten anywhere with the device,” she said as the Colonel came in, eyeing off his counterpart and leaning down on the desk with a familiarity that now seemed edged.

“So, talk about it,” he said.

Sam glanced at him, a little surprised at the invitation. “Sir?”

“It helps you think,” the Colonel pointed out, apparently ignoring O’Neill’s careful study. Sam wished she could do the same. Since the earliest days of her work with Colonel O’Neill, she’d always been very aware of him. Less as a man - although that aspect was there - as someone who possessed the kind of credentials she’d always admired. Someone who was worth serving alongside, worth being commanded by, worth putting your all on the line to be found worth the effort in return.

“You don’t usually listen,” she pointed out, more amused than astonished.

“I listen,” the Colonel protested. “I just don’t understand it.”

She looked down at the device he’d made to boost the power for the gate. “You made this.”

“I didn’t make it. The thingy in my head that took me over made this. I remember nothing of it.” He pulled up a chair and sat down, mostly ignoring his counterpart who Sam could feel watching them with hard, dark eyes. “So tell me about it.”

“Tell _us_ about it,” said O’Neill, pulling up another chair.

Sam had the feeling this was going to turn into a competition of sorts. A subtle one, perhaps, since the Colonel wasn’t the kind of man to get egotistical, but still more than any woman wished to get caught between.

But she could use someone to formulate ideas to - even if they weren’t able to formulate them back.

“Well, it seems simple enough,” she said. “The energy module of the staff weapon powers the device, but in all our studies of the staff weapons, their discharge is uncontrolled - causing the energy burst that makes them an effective weapon.”

“So it should blow up, but it’s not?”

“That’s about it, sir. My best guess is that the device has a modulating field around the liquid naquadah cell that dampens the energy transfer to the capacitor. The problem is that the modulating field was one of the things that burned out with the last energy transfer - and you-- Uh, Colonel O’Neill--“ She paused while she tried to work out the confusion of that statement, then gave up. “Colonel O’Neill set up a failsafe in the device that means that the energy transfer won’t happen if there’s any danger of the naquadah cell becoming unstable.”

She glanced up. Both men looked cross-eyed. Identically so. Sam repressed the urge to giggle at them, although she knew her mouth twitched.

“Don’t look at me-- at _us_ like that,” scowled O’Neill. “You know how it works, that’s the important part.”

“Yes, sir.” He flinched at the title, but Sam ignored it.

“But you’re confused about how to get it working again?” That was her Colonel O’Neill. “So it’s got a dampener thingy to stop it from blowing up. Can’t you use something else to stop it from blowing up when we try to run it?”

And here was the crux of the problem. “The problem isn’t the dampener, sir. The problem is that dampening something requires that the device be calibrated to the energy field or source that it’s dampening - which requires testing. And since I can’t produce the field in the first place...”

“Ah.” He straightened up, no longer leaning on his forearms. “You know, Carter, I’m glad it’s you dealing with these problems and not me.”

Taking it with the grain of salt that was customary in her dealings with the Colonel, Sam smiled, appreciating what he meant, if not what he said.

But her smile vanished as both men winced, and the other Colonel O’Neill convulsed into an eye-watering blur, multiple images of him shimmering and shivering through the air as he gritted his teeth and braced his hands on the desk to take the pain.

As swiftly as it had started up, it stopped, leaving both men gasping.

Sam had moved to the intercom phone before the Colonel asked what she was doing.

“Calling the infirmary, sir.”

It was his counterpart that answered. “You said they can’t help me-- Us.”

She met his eyes, saw the wincing pain that he was keeping in. “They can give you something for the pain. Or free up a bed for you to rest in.”

“He won’t take it, Carter,” said the Colonel, his voice rough with his own pain. And Sam knew he spoke the truth. Both men had the stoicism that had taken her commanding officer through the agony of a broken leg in Antarctica - set by a none-too-skilled captain - and the torture he’d undergone in Iraq before that.

“Maybe I’m not such a masochist as you,” O’Neill retorted grumpily. “Don’t bother calling - I’ll go up and we’ll stop bothering you.”

“We will?” The Colonel feigned surprise, then shrugged. “I suppose there are things that still need doing. Anything you need to work this out, Carter? Coffee, snacks, resources?”

She thought about it for a moment. “There is one thing, sir.”

“Yes?”

“Would you mind finding what Daniel’s doing and sending him along? I could use him to bounce ideas off.”

*

Jack had a small hope that he would escape the presence of the other version of himself without having the whole him-and-Carter thing being brought up again. It made him uncomfortable to think that he and Carter...

Not that she wasn’t an attractive woman, but he tried to avoid noticing it as much as possible. It wasn’t intended as an insult to Carter, he just didn’t want to get in trouble somewhere along the blurry line of sexual harassment. More importantly, he didn’t want to get Carter’s reputation smeared in the delicate dance of association in the armed forces. They were in a chain of command; to get too friendly would be bad for her career more than his. And if there’d been an initial doubt about her suitability to be serving in this command as a member of his team, then they’d been swept away within the first two months of commanding her.

This other version of him - a version who’d been married to the Carter of his world - messed things up. His presence negated Jack’s initial reaction to discovering that the reality Daniel visited had featured a Jack O’Neill and a Samantha Carter that were also romantically involved.

Once was a coincidence, twice was suspicious.

Three times was never going to happen. Hammond had drawn Jack aside and informed him that he was going to give orders for the mirror device to be destroyed once this mission was completed. They wouldn’t risk anyone - or anything - else coming through from another world.

 _Some lines just aren’t meant to be crossed._

Sneaking a look at his counterpart as they reached the elevators, Jack understood Hammond’s uneasiness - it was extremely disconcerting to see his own face, haggard and careworn - more so than the face that had looked out of his mirror that morning.

He hadn’t intended to be observed watching, but the other man glanced at him, a sideways slash of dark eyes that was a very effective assessment.

“So, you usually drop by to watch her work, don’t you?”

Jack grimaced. No mercy then. Still, if it had been the other way around, he doubted he’d have had much mercy for the other man either. “Sometimes,” he made it sound nonchalant. “There’s not always a lot to do on base, and she has the advantage of being interested in what she’s doing.”

Did he look that evil when he smirked? Surely not.

“Or maybe just the advantage of being interest _ing_.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jack snapped, before he remembered that the other man knew _exactly_ what he was talking about. He’d been there, done that, and had the scars to prove it.

“Oh, I think I do.” The other man waited until they were in the elevator before he spoke again. “That’s how it started for me, too.”

Jack glanced up at the red numbers indicating the floor. They scrolled past slowly - too slowly for his liking. Daniel was on sub-level nineteen, in the brig, learning about the mirror device with Kawalsky. It was only two floors from Carter’s lab, but it felt like an aeon. “It’s different – and you know it!”

“How?” The demand was unrelenting. Unforgiving. Jack O’Neill to his very core – whatever reality he’d come from. “How is it different? She’s still the woman she was – all the personality and brilliance and intelligence the same, her thought patterns, her likes and dislikes. She’s still a scientist, still a woman...” The dark eyes gleamed, “I’ll be she’s still a wildcat in bed, too.”

Jack pinned him with a glare. Tried to. Failed, because the other man wasn’t perturbed at all. “I didn’t need to know that,” he snapped, furious at the thoughts the other man had put in his mind.

“Because you’re too chicken to try a second time after losing Charlie and Sara?”

Jack caught his breath. Nobody had brought it up so bluntly. Nobody else had the right to do so. But the man was wrong, and Jack didn’t mind saying so.

“This has nothing to do with them.” The doors opened at sub-level nineteen, but Jack didn’t get out. He glared briefly at the airmen waiting outside and pressed the button to close the doors again and held it there. This was not a conversation he wanted bandied about the base. “It has everything to do with Carter.”

The other man began to smirk.

Jack wasn’t finished.

“Maybe she was your wife in your reality, but here, she’s an officer in the US Air Force - Major Samantha Carter. She’s our resident technical expert on the Stargate as well as the highest-ranking female officer in a demanding command. Just how long do you think her career would survive even the implication of an affair with her commanding officer, Colonel?”

He saw the irony of it hit his counterpart. Neither of them were stupid men, but Jack knew his own weaknesses, his tendency to look at the overview and leave the little details of his team-mates. He didn’t know how O’Neill had worked in his own reality, but he knew how things worked in this reality.

What Jack had - a living breathing Samantha Carter - was what his counterpart no longer had.

What his counterpart used to have - the Samantha Carter who’d married Jack O’Neill - was what Jack couldn’t have.

What Jack had - and was damned proud of - was Major Sam Carter.

Jack didn’t want to look any deeper than he had to – he didn’t want to look at ‘might have beens’ because they were no use in the here and now. And he kept a professional distance as much as possible, because Carter was a good officer and deserved the best in her career.

The other man had _loved_ the woman of his world who was and wasn’t Carter. Jack didn’t have that option.

And he saw his counterpart finally realise that.

“You poor bastard.” The words were casual, even, but the implied pity stung.

He was tempted to retort with the same, but it would have been outright cruel. Jack just walked out of the lift without another word to his counterpart.

As he strode out past the flustered airmen, he reflected that between Sam Carter untouchable and alive, and Sam Carter loved and dead, he’d take untouchable, every time.

*

Teal’c clanked into the room in full serpent armour, with a little tuft of goatee stuck to his chin.

Both O’Neill and Kawalsky reached for their weapons on automatic.

“Whoa,” Daniel said, stepping in front of the weapons. “He’s a friend, remember?”

There was a moment when he thought they’d shoot. He was sure that O’Neill’s grip tightened on the P-90 enough to whiten his knuckles. Then the Colonel put the weapon down and Kawalsky followed.

It was then that he realised that he’d been standing in front of two men who were, if not quite on hair-trigger, still very tense.

Daniel breathed again, and gave a nod to the airmen who’d reached for their weapons. They could put them away now.

“You know, seeing him in that really gives me the creeps,” O’Neill commented.

Teal’c turned his head and favoured O’Neill with a grim stare. “I am not fond of this outfit either.”

“So, campers,” Jack said as he and Sam filed into the room, Hammond a step behind them, “ready to go through the looking glass?”

“Huh. Shouldn’t that be following the yellow brick road?” Daniel inquired innocently, and received a glare for his comment. During an ‘old movies kick’, Jack had introduced Teal’c into a bunch of classic movies - everything from ‘ _Gone With The Wind_ ’ to ‘ _Rear Window_ ’, passing through ‘ _The Wizard Of Oz_ ’ and ‘ _Casablanca_ ’ on the way. The resultant spate of quotations had nearly driven Daniel to practise his shooting skills - on Jack.

A little payback was only just and fair.

Sam shifted slightly, the change of pose that indicated she was about to bring up something that made her uncomfortable, but which she felt she should mention. “Actually, sir, I still don’t think your presence on this mission...”

“Carter, are you really going to tell your commanding officer what he can or can’t do?”

Daniel was a little surprised that Jack was neither treating it lightly, nor seemed to be offended by her suggestion. He wasn’t surprised to see that O’Neill was watching the conflict, though. Or that Kawalsky glanced at his friend.

To give Sam her due, she persisted. “The entropic cascade failure...”

“...can go and...”

“Colonel...” The General’s warning was clear.

“...jump in the lake,” the Colonel finished smoothly. “Because there is no way in any universe that I’d let my people go through that...that...mirror thingy to a world occupied by the Goa’uld without me watching their six. _Me_ and not some otherworld-reality-whatsit.” He glanced at O’Neill. “No offence.”

O’Neill had a sour smile on his face, the kind of smile that - on Jack - said that he agreed with the other person talking, he just didn’t want to admit it.

General Hammond had enough experience of the Colonel’s stubbornness to know when it was more trouble to enforce his will than to give in. “You have a go, Colonels, Majors. Sergeant Devlin will be keeping watch for your return.”

Daniel only vaguely remembered the experience of the transfer last time, but going through the mirror brought it all back. The faintest shivering sensation across his skin, the second’s blink during which the afterimage of the departed reality faded and the new reality set in. As it faded, he saw they were the a store-room with debris littering the floor and the echo of Jaffa boot heels ringing down the hall.

They scattered to either side of the too-open doorway. Sam crouched behind a box, Teal’c moved around into a corner that wasn’t visible from the door and Daniel found a niche between two sets of shelves. Ironically, Jack and O’Neill were on either side of the door, mirror images to each other.

As if in echo to Daniel’s thoughts, Kawalsky gave a low mutter, “Mirror.” It was one word, close to Daniel’s ear so as not to be heard by the approaching Jaffa.

Daniel glanced back, saw the General looking concernedly back at them, then out towards the door and the corridor beyond where the Jaffa were getting closer.

Jack made a cutting motion across his throat. Daniel shook his head. If they lost their world, the chances of them finding it again were slim to non-existent. But the footsteps were getting louder, and Jack’s motions became more urgent.

 _Fine._ Daniel felt a little peevish, given how much effort he’d put into finding the reality in the first place. It was childish and foolish, perhaps, but that was how he felt about it.

The mirror blacked out. The Jaffa approached. One paused at the door, as though sensing them in there. Daniel wondered if the naquadah in Teal’c and Sam’s blood would give them away. Then the footsteps continued.

“Recon,” said Jack. Their roles and course of action had been agreed upon back in the SGC. Jack and Kawalsky were headed up to the power mains and the switchboard to hook up the device since Jack had already done it once before, Sam, O’Neill, and Teal’c would be headed for the control room to upload the gate address and get O’Neill through the gate.

With nothing more than a glance, Jack, O’Neill and Kawalsky headed out the door, crouched low to evade... Actually, Daniel didn’t know _what_ they were going to evade by crouching low. From a distance, surely they’d be just as visible down low as they were standing up?

Sam closed the door halfway, wincing a little as the hinges squeaked. “They’re gathering for something,” she murmured.

Teal’c shifted from where he’d been before, so still, it was as though he’d been turned into stone. “If they have subdued the SGC, then it is possible that Apophis has arrived.”

“Apophis has entered the building?” Daniel caught his team-mates’ expressions. “If Jack had been here, he’d have said it.”

“O’Neill is not here,” Teal’c murmured.

“And you said it, Daniel,” Sam said, her voice kept low as she shifted the hard-drive in her hands.

“Jack’s a bad influence.”

“Oh, ya think?” This time it was Sam who weathered the expressions of the other two. “Maybe he is.”

No-one was going to argue about that.

When the other three came back, they were grim faced as they confirmed that Apophis had arrived through the Stargate. “How much more security are they gonna bring in?” Jack asked Teal’c softly.

“There will be a significant presence of Jaffa where Apophis is - at least twenty warriors, as well as his serpent guards.” Then Teal’c stiffened and had his staff weapon up and pointed at the door.

There was an irony in the sight of Teal’c facing another version of himself - no less impressive, although considerably more astonished. However, the exchange made one thing perfectly clear: Teal’c’s counterpart had never contemplated rebellion. Jack, Sam, and Daniel would have mouldered in the prison on Chulak long before this Teal’c let them out.

Daniel was still shocked when Teal’c killed his counterpart, though. The bloodlessness of it was confronting - in a man that Daniel was used to thinking of as a friend... Neither O’Neill nor Kawalsky made so much as a peep, but Sam winced, and Jack grimaced.

“As I said, O’Neill. Ours is the only reality of consequence.”

Jack glanced at his watch. “All right, then. Carter, Teal’c...other-me, you’re off. Try not to get shot along the way.”

“Back atcha, Jack,” said O’Neill pointedly as they left.

Jack turned to Daniel. “Am I really...?”

“Yep.”

“Right. You’ll be okay here?”

“As long as Other-Teal’c doesn’t rise up from the dead, I’ll be fine,” Daniel told him.

Jack clapped him lightly on the shoulder, then jerked his head at Kawalsky, and they moved out, taking the energy booster device with them.

Daniel turned on the mirror, and with a sigh, began going through the realities.

 _Showtime._

*

The Colonel and Major Kawalsky were on their way to the SGA’s power room, stealing away on quiet feet.

Sam kept her face down and played meek as she followed the alternate Colonel through the rubble and debris of the fight. It went against the grain, but in a good cause, she could pretend to be cowed and scared. While the Jaffa probably hadn’t noticed her dead counterpart as anything more than one more human to dispose of, she didn’t want to take any chances. Two prisoners - the woman being held hostage as insurance against the man - wouldn’t cause much comment.

On the other hand, two prisoners, one of whom had been killed in the initial attack on the base and was now walking around looking very much alive... There’d be curiosity, if not outright suspicion, and they were trying to avoid both.

Things were already complex enough.

There’d been a few moments of confrontation in the room when the three men returned. They’d led the alternate Teal’c - First Prime of Apophis - straight to them. Teal’c had killed him without about as much compunction as Sam would swat at a flying insect, leaving everyone just a little stunned.

 _Our reality is the only one of consequence._ As she navigated around a chunk of wall fragmented by staff weapons fire, Sam wondered if Teal’c realised the dichotomy in his statement. They were here in this reality _because_ their reality wasn’t the only one that counted.

Then there’d been the Colonel’s attempt to change everything around.

“ _Why don’t I go through to the Asgard? I’ve met Thor before_.”

“ _This Thor hasn’t met you, sir_ ,” Sam said with the simplicity of a woman in whose mind it was all laid out. “ _Colonel O’Neill needs to make contact with them himself_.”

He accepted that, although he plainly wasn’t entirely happy about leaving the meeting in his counterpart’s hands. Sam also wondered if the Colonel didn’t have a soft spot for the Asgard, given the number of times they’d helped out Earth. And there was the Roswell alien factor, too.

She had to admit, Thor was entertaining in the solemnity of his manner and the apparent inability to make a joke or understand Earth humour.

A cry of pain echoed down the corridor - an older man’s voice, hoarse from screaming.

Sam knew what she’d see before Teal’c prodded her up the stairs to the control room.

General Hammond was clearly in pain, but stubbornly silent as he faced Apophis and the Jaffa torturing him. From the fragments that had floated down the corridor, Sam gathered that the Goa’uld wanted to know the address of the planet to which the world leaders had been sent, and General Hammond was holding back.

“Kel tak, Apophis.”

“What is this?” Apophis regarded them with suspicion. “Teal’c?”

“My Lord, they were attempting to escape the compound.”

He looked them over as though they were cattle, and Sam avoided meeting his eye or the eyes of the Jaffa. The Colonel stood in her light, casting her in shadow, and she had to hope that was enough to keep them from studying her too closely.

But Apophis had other things on his mind as he barked out that Teal’c should continue working on General Hammond, or else torture Sam to get it out of the other two. Sam felt her scalp crawl at the offhand manner in which the Goa’uld tossed the suggestion out before striding away with the serpent guards following him. Two Jaffa remained behind the prisoner, the faint light of the control room overhead monitors gleaming in reflection as they turned to look at Teal’c.

As the footsteps faded down the corridor, the General shifted. “You might as well kill me now. I ain’t gonna tell you anything.”

“ _Hak yat!_ ” One of the Jaffa dealt him a solid blow from behind, and she grimaced, then tensed as a zat snap-hissed open behind her, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. She relaxed a moment later, knowing what was coming.

O’Neill didn’t and tensed.

The electric blue sine wave of zat-fire illuminated the control room briefly, and the General looked up in surprise as one of his two guards collapsed beside him, twitching slightly. A moment later, the second one followed him, and Sam was stepping forward to help him to his feet.

He was on his feet before he saw her, and nearly fell back down again. “My God!”

As O’Neill searched the prostrate Jaffa for the keys to the General’s shackles, Sam stepped back and saluted. “Major Sam Carter reporting for duty, sir.”

The tone of voice and the salute did more to separate her from he counterpart in the mind of the General than anything else she could have said and done. He’d seen and done a lot in the last three years; he’d learned to cope with surprises at every turn. “At ease, Major.” His gaze rested suspiciously on Teal’c, before the doubt cleared from his face as O’Neill rose with the keys and Teal’c zatted the Jaffa twice more, vanishing them. “I take it the mirror worked then?” He asked as the Colonel began unchaining him.

“Just like she said it would.”

Sam didn’t look at the Colonel. She didn’t dare. As it was, she could feel the General’s eyes on her, a thoughtful look, before he turned to regard Teal’c. “I’m guessing he’s safe.”

She overlooked the implicit rudeness in the bypassing reference, and glanced at Teal’c, who nodded and went to stand by the stairs, keeping a watch down the approaching corridor. “He’s from my world, sir. I trust him with my life.”

The General hesitated, but nodded. It had probably helped that Teal’c had just killed two Jaffa before his eyes. “That’s good enough for me.” Then he turned to O’Neill with a hard look, shifting his shoulders. “I thought I ordered you to go and not come back.”

“Well, you know how I tend to go with orders, sir.”

The General chuckled. It was more of a wheeze than a chuckle, but there was laughter there. “All right. I’m guessing you’ve got a plan, then?”

“Yes, sir. Sam will be explaining it.”

“We have allies that you haven’t yet met, sir. The Asgard have been helpful against the Goa’uld before and we’re going to try to make contact with them. My team are dealing with the power source, but I’ve got a hard drive that we need to install...”

Sam saw the look come over the General’s face. “Does it require my authorisation?”

“No, sir.”

“Just do it, Doc...er, Major.” General Hammond said.

The chairs for the computer systems were overturned, but the computers appeared untouched. Sam sought out the least-damaged workstation and began bringing up the system, sector by sector. At least the boot drives were undamaged, although she’d have to run a full gate diagnostic to be sure that everything was working.

She called Teal’c over and handed him the hard drive. “It goes in the drive frame. When I say, take out the third drive from the bottom and replace it with that one.” Teal’c didn’t need more explanation than that, and he’d recently begun learning some of the details of the control room - not the in-depth coding and systems diagnostics, but the basics of where everything was laid out and how it worked.

As Teal’c moved away, Sam felt the Colonel come to stand beside her. It was a prickle of awareness - the awareness she’d been careful to ignore these last few years. She hoped, when all this was over, that she’d be able to ignore it again.

He watched over her shoulder as she ran a quick system diagnostic. “I guess I couldn’t persuade you to defect?”

She shook her head, watching the boot sectors run through their checks, relieved to see that the Jaffa hadn’t yet managed to breach the server room. Perhaps they saw the wisdom in not destroying their primary means of getting on and off the planet. “I’m not in resonance with your universe, sir. What happened to you would also happen to me in time. Maybe not as soon as you, but, in time...”

“And if that wasn’t the case?”

It might have just been the two of them in the room. Perhaps for him, there was only the two of them. But Sam was only too aware of the General over by the first-aid box, attending to his injuries with a discarded gun to hand, and of Teal’c’s silent, still bulk, reticent and silent.

Sam met the familiar and unfamiliar face, gaze for gaze. “Then I still wouldn’t defect, sir. That world is mine, not this one. Your wife is dead. I can’t replace her.” _And I wouldn’t want to, anyway. Because I don’t want to be loved for a woman who was me in another life – I want to be loved for_ me _._

Yes, she was attracted to Jack O’Neill. She could admit it. But she wasn’t about to let that interfere with her work or her friendship with him. He was her commanding officer; admiration was fine, but infatuation might be fatal when her team was on the line.

He winced, the dark lashes lowering like shutters. “Tough as nails, then, Major?”

“Doing what I have to do, Colonel.” Sam turned back to the computer and began bringing up the dialling program. It looked like her other self had utilised the same programming to run the Stargate and interpret the feedback data from the Stargate – and that made it all familiar. Unlike the man whose gaze she could still feel on her neck.

The sound of his huff was laced with pain. “That’s what she said, too.”

She didn’t want to turn. She didn’t. But she had to. Because whatever differences there were between her and her counterpart, there were still some things the same.

Once again, she was caught up in his gaze. Her Colonel O’Neill disguised his eyes before his subordinate. This Colonel had learned not to hide his feelings before his wife, and the Sam Carter who was not his wife could not look away from the passion and the despair in his expression.

This man had not just loved her counterpart, he had _loved_ her.

Sam had never been loved like that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But a part of her longed to be loved and wanted and known the way this man had known her counterpart. It ached in her chest, making her breath short and her heart palpitate. She didn’t realise she’d clenched her hands into fists on the desk until her fingernails bit into her palms.

“Sir?”

“Her last words to me were, ‘I’ll do what I have to do, Jack. And so will you.’”

Sam could think of nothing to say. She had no words for him, no comforting phrases, no reassurances, no trite clichés.

She had nothing to offer him.

No, not quite nothing. She had the hope of an alliance with the Asgard – the promise of allies – a promise his wife had not been able to see through. In Dr. Samantha Carter’s stead, Major Sam Carter would complete the task.

It took all her emotional strength to drag her eyes from his face, but she clamped down on the feelings assaulting her, unclenched her fists, and started typing again.

“I guess that’s one more thing we had in common,” she said lightly, as her fingers flew over the keyboard, ordering the system to shut down the connection to the external drives. She watched the red lines retreat across the screen. “Now, Teal’c.”

A few seconds passed, punctuated by the noises of a drive being removed and a drive being inserted. “It is done, Major Carter.”

Sam watched the screen as the red line snaked along the diagram and lit up the set of drives. A few commands confirmed that the drive was set up and ready to go. Then she initiated the dialling program, loading up the address and setting it into a wait sequence.

“Okay,” Sam said with a deep breath. The stage was set. “Now we’re just waiting on the Colonel.”

She froze as fingers trailed down her cheek. “He doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

Stepping away from the console, she looked up at him, feeling the ache in her heart - both for this man and for herself and what she would never know with him or his counterpart. “Maybe not. But the funny thing about not knowing what you’re missing is that you don’t miss it.”

“Touché.”

Sam paused as the lights in the control room went out. The computer screens blanked and everything was plunged into darkness, with only the eerie green of the emergency lighting to illuminate the control room and gateroom. A moment later, everything started back up again - including the computer system, which went into a fast boot mode and promptly began dialling the gate.

You go, sir!

It seemed even louder than usual, and Sam looked up at the Colonel. “You’d better go meet Thor, sir.”

He hesitated. With the fate of his world in the balance, he hesitated, and Sam set her face to stony indifference. Things were the way they were because they had to be that way. She mightn’t like it, but she had to live with it.

And so would he.

O’Neill glanced at the General’s slight sound of impatience. “Just go, Jack.”

His footsteps clattered down the stairs as the General and Teal’c flanked her to watch him go.

The sound of the zat in the gateroom below was unwelcome.

“Jaffa! Kree hol mel!” Sam flinched as Teal’c bellowed from beside her. Her eyes scanned to her right, looking for the Colonel. He winced as he straightened up; beneath the ripple of the now-open wormhole, she heard his knees crack as he came out of the crouch. “Hol mel Jaffa!”

“Got a pair of lungs on him, that one,” the General muttered, one part admiration, one part deafness.

For a wonder, the Jaffa held his fire. He was confused and bewildered, but he held his fire.

Sam was hardly paying attention. Her eyes were focused on the Colonel, willing him to get up that ramp and through to the Asgard.

Come on, Jack O’Neill. You’re their only hope!

The Colonel would have rolled his eyes if he could hear her. But he hurried up the ramp, almost stumbling in his haste, and vanished through the wormhole as though he had.

The wormhole cut out behind him, leaving only the empty gateroom, the bewildered Jaffa, and the three of them standing at the control room window, looking down.

 _Now, all we have to do is get back to the storeroom with the mirror and hightail it home. Piece of cake._

“Teal’c!” The voice came from behind, harsh in outrage. “Why do you betray me?”

They turned, slowly, knowing there was no point in hiding it.

Sam held her hands out to either side, displaying her harmlessness.

The prospect of home dimmed.

 _Yeah, piece of cake._

*

There was a certain freedom in standing before Apophis, _shol’va_ and proud of it. The other Teal’c had known no other life but servitude; Teal’c had tasted freedom and he would not recant it.

Apophis was not pleased with this.

In the rubble of the control room, they knelt - or, in Teal’c’s case, stood - before Apophis. Teal’c had kneeled to Apophis often enough. He would do so no longer and the Jaffa were reluctant to force him.

“Who are you? What magic is this?”

Daniel Jackson moved slightly, drawing Apophis’ attention. “You should know better than anyone, there’s no such thing as ‘magic’.”

From years of experience, Teal’c knew the signs of Apophis’ wrath: the flare of the eyelids, the tightening at the corners of the mouth, the lift of the head. “ _On the old man!_ ”

Behind General Hammond, a _zat’nik’atel_ snapped up.

“I will ask you once again - how is it possible that there are two of Teal’c?” He turned to glare at O’Neill. “How is it possible that you fled through the _Chappa’ai_ and yet kneel before me?”

Teal’c had no doubt that his friend had many things to say. But with the _zat’nik’atel_ trained on General Hammond, there would be no saying them.

It made little difference. Apophis nodded, and the General collapsed on the floor.

“Second shot kills here, too?” O’Neill muttered to Major Kawalsky.

Apophis was infuriated. “Tell me what I need to know!”

Teal’c was not smiling. However, he gained a dark amusement from the knowledge that they would go to their deaths having frustrated Apophis as few people had before them. The Goa’uld were not accustomed to being thwarted, and not in such a manner.

“We’re not from your world.” Major Carter spoke at last. She was still staring at the floor beneath the computer desk.

Apophis strode over to her, dragged up her chin. “What do you mean?”

The tension in the room rose. Teal’c felt his own muscles tense. Apophis had an eye for women. Should he take an interest in Major Carter...

“Okay, well, I guess I’ll give this a go,” Daniel Jackson said, tilting his head to the side. “You see, at every point in time there exists infinite possibilities. A parallel reality exists for every single possibility so there are literally infinite branches...”

Teal’c’s allies had explained to him the concept of the ‘cringe.’ Jaffa behaviour, however, had no such parallel for it. Shame might fall upon a Jaffa or upon those he commanded, served among, on his family, on his name - but it was borne with dignity, without flinching. Such was the way of the Jaffa.

However, he thought he understood the desire now. Daniel Jackson’s attempt at explanation was received in much the same way that O’Neill received Samantha Carter’s explanations - only with far less lenience.

The second _zat’nik’atel_ blast pulsed out.

Teal’c closed his eyes. He heard the shocked silence in the moment before Major Kawalsky erupted. “No!”

“Kawalsky!”

Teal’c opened his eyes as Apophis stepped forward. The false god took Major Carter by the hair and dragged her forward, ignoring the way she kicked out at him once before his finger closed around her throat and he raised the ribbon device. “I could kill her now,” the Goa’uld said. It was no empty threat. “Or,” he said, with resonant malice, “I could make her wish for death.”

Major Kawalsky had stopped struggling immediately. Neither O’Neill, nor Daniel Jackson moved.

Teal’c looked to the serpent guards who protected their lord. They would not move to stop what would happen. Behind him stood a Jaffa, his weapon at the ready. In a single movement, Teal’c could take the staff weapon and destroy the false god, striking him down with a single blow to the throat...

The sound of the _zat’nik’atel_ firing seemed at once very close but very far away, Teal’c collapsed on the floor, feeling the agony through his muscles, the outraged writhe of the _primta_ in his belly. Vaguely, he was aware of the protests of his friends, Major Carter’s voice rising clear through the haziness of his sight. He struggled against the lethargy, trying to push himself up. Heard another _zat’nik’atel_ blast, and another, heard more angry protests, then the sound of Jaffa boot heels.

“My Lord. There is a ship approaching! A ship of the Reenlokia!!”

 _The Asgard._ Teal’c made the translation in his head, and felt elation run through him. Apophis was giving the order to leave, and the heavy tread of the Jaffa boot steps reverberated through Teal’c’s cheek, fading away as O’Neill leaned over to lift him up.

“You okay, buddy?”

On the other side of O’Neill, Major Kawalsky was helping Daniel Jackson up.

Teal’c had no opportunity to answer.

With a sound of annoyance, Apophis lifted his left hand. The jewel in the ribbon device glowed, orange-red. A ripple of power slammed into Major Carter, flinging her across the Gateroom floor like a rag doll. They heard the crack of her skull against the machines, sickening bone against unyielding metal. She slumped and was still.

A moment later, O'Neill was on his feet, grappling with the Goa'uld. His right hand gripped Apophis’ ribbon device away from him, as his left tightened around the Goa’uld’s throat, crushing host and symbiote.

Teal'c lunged for the partly raised weapon of the nearest Jaffa. He would be too late to stop the staff weapon blast that would kill O'Neill, but he would die fighting.

Even as the serpent guard's staff weapon snapped open, a blinding light covered him. He vanished. Then the other serpent guard, and Apophis himself.

O’Neill staggered as his opponent vanished, nearly falling to his knees. But when Teal’c gripped his shoulder, trying to help him up, his friend pushed him away, stumbling over to where Major Carter lay.

Teal’c watched, waited, saw the slight rise and fall of her chest in the darkness, and felt relief. She was alive, at least, although there was no telling what damage had been done to her.

“They’re leaving.” Daniel Jackson had gone to the window of the control room, obedient to the sound of the Jaffa running up the ramp and through the wormhole, while Major Kawalsky knelt beside General Hammond, checking for a pulse.

After a moment, the Major shook his head and sat back on his knees. A glance at Teal’c only confirmed what was known. “He’s gone.”

“I am sorry, Major Kawalsky.” There was nothing to be done - the second shot from a _zat’nik’atel_ always killed. Daniel Jackson came to stand beside Teal’c as the gate shut down.

The man nodded and glanced over at Major Carter. “How is she?”

“Alive, but she needs medical help...” O’Neill’s voice was rough with an emotion he rarely displayed. “Who’s your doc?”

“Carolyn Lam,” Kawalsky said. “I’ll find her.” He climbed to his feet. “Are we gonna find any more of the bastards hanging around?” His question ended on a inhalation of breath as white light spilled down over the corpse of General Hammond and his body was beamed away. A moment later, another beam materialised O’Neill’s counterpart in the middle of the control room.

“There’s no place like home,” the man declared, looking around. Then his breath caught as he spotted O’Neill kneeling beside Samantha Carter, and terror stripped the casual mask from his face. “God, Sam!”

He nearly shoved O’Neill out of the way, reaching down to cradle her head in his hands.

“Hey!” O’Neill grabbed his counterpart by the shoulders. “She’s alive.”

The other man nearly shoved him away. As it was, he swatted O’Neill away, his attention entirely on Major Carter. “She’s hurt.”

“She’ll survive.”

“Sam didn’t.”

Teal’c saw O’Neill’s face harden. “She’s not your Sam.”

There was cruelty in those words. But a kind of _Tau’ri_ kindness as well. It had been evident that O’Neill’s counterpart had loved the Samantha Carter here; as evident as it was that O’Neill would never willingly allow Major Carter to remain here. Nor would Teal’c or Daniel.

The other man’s head reared back, and the expression on his face was stricken like a man struck in the heart.

Between the two men, Major Carter’s head shifted a little and she opened her eyes. “Sir?”

She didn’t quite flinch at the hand that brushed her cheek, but her head turned and her eyes sought out those of her team-mates, a reassurance she needed.

“You okay, Carter?” O’Neill knew not to push his way in. He sat back on his haunches, protective, but allowing her the space she needed as his counterpart could not.

Major Carter eased herself up, wincing as she rested her spine against the machines, and accepting the other Colonel’s help, even if her expression was closed and carefully wary. “Peachy, sir.” She closed her eyes. Opened them. Looked around at the others, with wry good humour, even through the pain. “So, I guess we won?”

Teal’c allowed himself a smile as O’Neill nodded.

“Yeah, Carter. We won.”

*

It was a bitter victory.

People were dead and injured. The Asgard could bring back the immediate dead from life, but not the older dead. General Hammond had been fortunate.

Dr. Samantha Carter was not.

Sam didn’t go to see her counterpart’s corpse in the too-crowded morgue. Her own aches and injuries were enough reminder of her mortality, without looking at her own dead face.

In spite of the protests of her team and the other Colonel O’Neill, she insisted on helping out in the control room. This world would be without a Sam Carter to run their Stargate program in the future, and there were a few things that Sam felt she could do for their systems - to help their technicians deal with the loss. As she told General Hammond, the other O’Neill, her own Colonel, and Teal’c, it wasn’t a big effort. She was perfectly fine.

In fact, it was more effort to ignore the stares and the whispers of the personnel who looked at her face and her haircut and the military fatigues she wore with such ease.

It was harder to ignore the weight of who she’d been here, especially when, more than once, a technician addressed her as Dr. O’Neill before being recalled to who she wasn’t.

When Daniel came to fetch her and she handed over to the control room personnel, it was almost a relief.

He glanced at her as they nodded at the personnel they passed, and more than one stared. “Celebrity?”

“You wouldn’t laugh if it was you.”

“Well, it’s not me,” he said; but in a serious voice.

The storeroom seemed smaller than it had the last time they were in here; or maybe it was just the sense of it.

Kawalsky saluted the Colonel, Teal’c, and Daniel, and moved to kiss her on the cheek before he stopped himself. Sam smiled and let him hug her. She’d never known the other Charles Kawalsky, but he’d seemed a good man. His counterpart certainly was.

O’Neill said goodbye with a sense of distance, as though he was drawing away from them. He made no move to touch Sam.

But just as she and the others reached out to touch the mirror, he plucked at her sleeve. “Sam.”

A moment later, her team-mates were on the other side of the mirror. And she was not.

“Sir?”

She didn’t need to look back into the mirror to see the consternation and alarm on the faces of her team-mates, or General Hammond’s expression as Daniel explained the situation to him.

“I know… know you’re not her,” he said, very gently. “And I know this could make things tricky for you and… _him_. But, just once, I’d like to remember her.”

It took all her willpower not to turn to look back at the mirror. “What do you mean, sir?”

He didn’t ask permission. If he had, she’d have denied him the request. Maybe that was why he didn’t.

It was a brief kiss. Brief and sweet and regretful – full of lost hopes and dreams and the memory of a woman dead. And yet…

Yet there was promise, too. Hope and a future and a possibility that she’d never entertained because entertaining it was too close to the bone and too dangerous to play with.

In taking the choice out of her hands, he’d also taken away her decision to keep her distance.

She broke away from him, rejecting his actions, rejecting what he’d done. But her body remembered the taste of him, the feel of his lips against hers, and she nearly rubbed the back of her hand over her mouth. Compassion stopped her – she saw his eyes and her hand tipped her temple in a salute that wasn’t entirely steady. “Sir.”

He swallowed and tipped his own salute. Jaunty, for all that the face beneath it was tight and pale. “Carter.”

Sam turned and touched the mirror, anxious to be home.

As Daniel touched her arm, asking if she was okay, she watched the mirror’s reflection darken and die, cutting them off from the other world forever.

She reassured Daniel, and smiled at Teal’c. She nodded at General Hammond, who looked as though he wanted to ask questions as he looked from her to the Colonel and back to her, then nodded and walked away.

And she looked at the Colonel as the others filed out, giving them a semblance of privacy.

Two men who were very different, and yet so much the same. She could feel his lips against hers, the tenderness and desire and loss.

Did he wonder? Or did he block out those thoughts with all the force of his formidable will?

Sam had a feeling she’d never know.

“Carter.”

“Sir.”

They’d never talk about it. Because that wasn’t who they were.

Maybe someday, they would reach a stage where they could talk about it. Face what had only ever been potential.

Maybe.


End file.
